£ 642 
• 096 

-Opy I 



A MEMORIAL-DAY 
ADDRESS 



Delivered before the members of Lincoln Post, 
in Magf«ire^s Opera House, Butte, Montana, 
Monday Evening, May 30, J 898, by J, H. 
Dttrston, Editor of the Anaconda Standard.^ 



^ 



FOR PRIVATE 
CIRCULATION. 



'UPUCATEETOHANOEO. 

AUG 2 1907 






By 'lTaMfet.% 
f3Ag '07 



A Memorial-Day Address 



What constitutes a state? 
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, 

Thick wall or moated ffate ; 
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned ; 

Not bays and broad-armed ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; 

Not starred and spangled courts. 
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 

No — men, high-minded men. 



Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain. 

Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain ; 

These constitute a state. 



A MEMORIAL-DAY ADDRESS. 



Members of Lincoln Post, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Under the wealth of shade at historic Arlington, crowning 
a bluff along whose base the waters of the Potomac widen on 
their way to the sea, stands a tomb with this inscription: 
"Here lie the bones of 2,111 unknown soldiers. Their remains 
could not be identified, but their names are recorded in the 
archives of their country, and its grateful citizens honor them 
as of the noble army of martyrs." Not far away, at Arlington, 
Sheridan and Porter sleep. Beyond are the graves of Harney 
and Crook and Meigs. In the park that spreads over the 
neighboring plateau stretch long lines of modest headstones 
that mark the resting place of soldiers — so perfect is the align- 
ment that fancy can picture the battalioned dead drawn up for 
dress parade. There are fifteen thousand of these silent senti- 
nels at Arlington. Some of them give the name and the num- 
ber of the regiment of the hero whose mound they guard ; on 
more than four thousand of them the brief inscription is the 
melancholy word "unknown." On American battlefields which 
their valor made famous, regiments of soldiers are buried. In 
church-yards throughout the land the graves of veterans 
cluster about monuments in which gratitude has sought ex- 
pression through enduring forms of art. Hardly a hamlet in 
the land but has within its borders the spot where some com- 
rade's dust is cherished. These, all, were citizen soldiers whose 
deeds the nation has commemorated to-day in the gentle min- 
istry of flowers. 

The years that separate us from the realities of the civil 
war deepen the interest taken in the observance of Memorial 
day. The recollection of the events in which these veterans had 
a share is vivid in communities that had not even been spoken 
into being when war was waging. The place where we meet 
to-night was like a woodland wilderness a little more than a 



third of a century ago, when the nation dwelt under the shadow 
of anxiety and the continent trembled beneath the tread of a 
million armed men. Hither we have come, during the years 
that are sped, to make for ourselves and for our children, amid 
Montana's encompassing hills, homes that are peaceful and 
prosperous because war made peace and prosperity possible ; 
because the union of the states was made perfect ; because 
each shining star was left undimmed on the flag whose ample 
folds belt the united continent in beauty as with a scarf. To 
these homes, so far from the bivouac and battlefield of the re- 
bellion, we, sons and daughters of the republic, brought with us 
the vmdying memory of what the soldier did and a sentiment of 
gratitude that shall not perish. We are taught that there is 
not an angel in all the hosts of heaven but wields its blessed in- 
fluence on earth in those who loved it here. So shall the service 
of the soldier of the civil war yield its beneficent fruit as long 
as the fires of patriotism warm the hearts of a redeemed 
people. 

We are not met to take part in the hilarities of a festival ; 
this is a day of remembrance. Its motive is gratitude ; its 
purpose is fraternal ; its inspiration is love. Garlands are its 
emblem — there is no sting in its springtide buds ; there is no 
bitterness in the incense of its flowers. To-day gray veterans 
have laid fragrant tributes above the dust of their fallen com- 
rades. In Butte's cemetery, they decorated the graves alike of 
Union soldier and Confederate comrade. This company of their 
fellow citizens lienors the act ; surely it cannot fan into flame 
the dead embers of sectionalism. Young men and women have 
witnessed the offering ; it will not waken a sentiment of re- 
sentment. And we bring these annual tributes, not chiefly 
to those who sleep in lofty sepuJchers, but especially to each 
forgotten soldier on whose unkept grave, as if of heaven's 
planting, the wild flower nods in the breeze of the morning or 
unfolds itself to the kiss of May day showers. These unmarked 
graves. These unsung soldiers. It must be that God hath given 
his angels charge concerning them. May we not believe that 
availing tears have blotted out the transgressions of those who 
atoned for so much when they gave their lives for their country ? 



The hearty celebration of this anniversary is made possible 
by the fact that, in respect to causes, the struggle that has its 
sequel in Memorial day was unlike any other war that was ever 
fought. The mission of the civil war was to write the defini- 
tion of a word. That word is sovereignty. The meaning of 
the word perplexed the members of the convention in which 
our constitution was framed. It disturbed our fathers, the 
citizens of the young states, at the time when the constitution 
was before them awaiting their approval. It evolved a rich 
literature. It was the theme of the first inquiry made by the 
nation's highest couit. It brought into being two schools of 
American statesmen and jurists. These men were unselfish 
lovers of their country, yet it must be said that history has not 
stamped the seal of its approval upon that which some of them 
taught. For more than eighty years this word was the theme 
of dispute. There entered into the controversy the opinions 
and preferences and prejudices of the people respecting the sub- 
ject of slavery ; anger took at length the place of calmness ; 
and when the memorable shot sped across the waters of 
Charleston harbor, the issue was removed from forum to field, 
from the arena of debate to the arbitrament of the sword, and 
the question which the jurists and the statesmen could not 
answer, became a problem which the common people solved. 
They defined the word— they wrote the definition in blood. 

For most of us the war that was thus made inevitable lives 
only in its traditions. Xot so with these veterans. To them 
these recurring anniversaries bring back memories of camp and 
field, of march and wound and battle, of disheartening repulse, 
sometimes, as well as of inspiring triumph, of requiem as well 
as of anthem — memories of Big Bethel and Ball's Bluff, of 
Donelson and Shiloh, of Fair Oaks and Cedar Mountain, of 
Malvern Hill and Chancellorsville, of Gettysburg and Winches- 
ter ; enduring privations in arduous western campaigns, suf- 
fering on the Peninsula; following where Meade or Logan or 
McDowell led; with Thomas at Chickamauga or with Sedgwick 
in the AVilderness; fighting above the clouds with Hooker at 
Lookout Mountain; sweeping across Georgia with Sherman; 
dashing through the valley with Sheridan— how grandly the list 



lengthens of intrepid commanders, the lustre of whose fame is 
dimmed only by the overshadowing glory of those whose names 
war made immortal ! 

Out of the hosts that made up the armies of the civil war, 
you, comrades, have been spared. Length of day and long life 
have been added unto you, that you might know how lasting 
the peace that was achieved, how complete the reconciliation, 
how ample the vindication of the Union; that you might see 
how patriotism has deepened, how the flag has become a hal- 
lowed emblem and American citizenship a coveted possession. 
Rejoice that it was your lot to have shared in the observance of 
this Memorial day, which has its distinction in the splendid fact 
that the uprising of the iNorth and the South in defense of your 
country against a foreign foe has made perfect the blending of 
the blue and gray. Read the crowning triumph of the war you 
helped to fight on the page of history that presently will teU 
how Dewey, under whose feet a Union ship once went down in 
the waters of the ]\Iississippi, carried the flag safe to the gates 
of Manila and gave it glory there, and how, less than a lifetime 
after Appomattox, a confederate general, Fitzhugh Lee, who 
had handed over his sword in surrender to Meade at Farmville, 
ranked high among the Union soldiers who put the ill-used 
island of the Antilles under the shelter of the stars and stripes 
and bade downtrodden Cuba stand up and be free ! 

It is not for you to bear arms in the war upon which we 
now have entered— many of you are approaching venerable 
years. Yet permit this anniversary to remind you of the new 
duties which new times bring. You have not forgotten that 
when you were soldiers the fear found lodgment in the minds 
of some of your countrymen that the spirit of imperialism, 
which the founders of our government so much dreaded, would 
make its baneful influence felt. Nor have you forgotten that, 
even while hills and valleys were echoing the shouts of the vic- 
tors, the soldier, as if to resent the suspicion, hastened home to 
field or forge, to shop or store — to the peaceful pursuits of civil 
life. The dread some of your countrymen had harbored proved 
idle. It may be, again to-day, that forebodings respecting the 
future are likewise vain. Yet we have reached the ambitious 

6 



point where, unless wise counsels prevail, we shall be hurried 
on toward schemes of aggrandizement and colonization which 
are un-American, even if they are not perilous. Lift up your 
voice against the sophistry which aims to persuade us that it is 
well for this country to add to its population millions of beings 
who must be subjects, but who cannot be citizens, so manifest 
their unfitness. Make vigorous your protest against the propo- 
sition that we have need of trade at marts whose highways 
must be held open with battleships. Exhort your neighbors, 
your townsmen, your fellow citizens that they spend their ener- 
gies in the effort to make fruitful our own unmatched domain, 
which wants only the touch of intelligent human effort, and 
that we leave the lands from which wide seas separate us to 
those in overcrowded Europe who have lack of standing room 
and who are compelled to go away from home to find it. 

Immigration wisely regulated, in association with an en- 
lightened policy respecting irrigation in the Northwest, is 
worth immensely more to our country than an oceanful of 
islands which are the homes of millions of men whose traits 
and aspiration and destiny are irreconcilably unlike our own. 
Each section of arid land made fertile, in our own common- 
wealth, with its thrifty harvest of grain waving like a golden 
sea, means more of benefit and blessing for our country than 
the costly product of foundry and machine shop wrought into 
floating acres of the murderous instrumentalities for war. 

If, comrades, you share these opinions, preach them. Our 
country will do right; it surely will be right. Yet always it has 
need of guidance, and its glory is that in the common people it 
finds its guides; they shape its destinies. So that in the days 
of this new war, which has a holy purpose, and which, every- 
where, American citizenship sustains with ardent loyalty, it is 
well that the veteran soldier counsel his brethren that we guard 
lest the evil passion for conquest lure us, lest we depart from 
the teachings of the fathers, whose creed it was that in our 
steadfast abstinence from foreign entanglement the highest 
hopes of the republic rest. 

The peace of God abide with the dead, your departed com- 
rades. Be it your prayer, as the shadows of this Memorial day 



deepen, that He in whose hands are the ways of nations and of 
men may have in his watchful care the volunteers who lately 
have gone forth from our own beloved state to uphold in dis- 
tant lands the honor of the flag. Long may you be spared, to 
see the sun of the republic moving in majesty, yet always un- 
erringly, toward its unclouded zenith. And when the sum- 
mons comes that bids you gird yourselves for the mysterious 
march on which no comrade shall attend you, may your por- 
tion be the infinite love of the compassionate Savior of the 
World ! 



013 785 183 •• 



